So an anchor is something you can create and then call upon if you need it to trigger a change in your state. The skydiving song was not the first time I used an anchor to achieve something that required courage on my part. Once at a Life Mastery event in Hawaii, Tony Robbins had us climb a very tall pole in pairs and walk across a high wire.  The feat required that we navigate the wire and not lose our balance as we walked across it. I recall telling my partner that I would help us maintain our state while he provided instructions on where to walk. I knew that if either of us looked down for too long, we would lose our balance. So every time he started to look down and I saw terror begin to register on his face, I shouted a mantra I received from one of my spiritual teachers. I had already been conditioned to believe that these words were very powerful.

The fellow with me on the high wire had no idea what I was shouting, but I said it with such confidence and force that he snapped back into a balanced state every time I shouted it.  We were actually the first two of only a few who accomplished the feat. Many of the others ended up falling and then dangled in mid air in their harnesses until they were rescued.  I attribute the power and confidence I had in that mantra to helping us make it across the high wire.

I called upon the power of those words yet another time when a group of us were rowing down the Colorado River. When I signed up for that trip, I had little experience kayaking and had no idea we would be facing strong headwinds for most of our journey.   We had 13 miles to navigate from Nevada into Arizona, and had to travel alongside larger boats that impeded our progress.

At one point, when I felt unable to move forward, I asked my rowing partner if she minded if I said my mantra to get energized. She told me to go ahead and do whatever I needed to help us get to our destination at Willow Beach. I began repeating it, got reenergized, and soon we overtook some of the other boats.

“I don’t know what you are saying,” she yelled to me,” but keep saying it!”